Universities agree to impose international student cap

The signing of a new agreement between Dutch universities and the government on “self-regulation” of international student intake and blocking new undergraduate programmes in English has been criticised by higher education experts as a “backroom deal” conducted in “very hush-hush” discussions that should have been open to a public debate.

The administrative agreement was signed by the Netherlands Association of Universities of Applied Sciences (VH), the Universities of the Netherlands (UNL) and the Minister of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) Rianne Letschert on 15 July.

It stipulates how the umbrella organisations will continue to strive for a controlled and targeted intake of international students with sufficient attention to the Dutch language proficiency.

The thirteen universities aim, as previously agreed, to admit no more than 16,766 international students annually, a decrease of over 11% compared to the maximum intake in the peak years 2022 and 2023. They all have their own target, but these have not been made public.

No new English-language programmes

The universities have agreed not to develop any new funded English-language bachelor programmes for the time being. Programmes for shortage sectors and programmes developed within the European Universities framework are exempted from this measure, the agreement stipulated.

“The parties are operating on the basis of the trust and certainty that the universities of applied sciences and universities have committed themselves to the implementation,” the Erasmus Magazine reported.

The administrative agreements are to be evaluated annually by the minister and the umbrella organisations, with the first evaluation due to take place in February 2027.

This evaluation will examine whether universities and universities of applied sciences need to adjust their mutual self-regulation agreements due to developments, such as those related to the recently published talent strategy, which was reported by University World News.

President of the Association of Universities of Applied Sciences Maurice Limmen said: “It is good that the agreements made by universities of applied sciences in 2024 are now also being administratively anchored with the Ministry.

“The influx of international students at universities of applied sciences has always been low and has declined even further in recent years.

“This underscores that our self-management approach is working. Universities of applied sciences are managing the influx of international students more consciously, with an eye to the quality of education, accommodation, and the needs of the labour market.”

‘Random target numbers’ used

But Dr Ingmar Visser, an associate professor of developmental psychology at the University of Amsterdam and chair of the University Committee on Education, told University World News that the whole process of drawing up the agreement had been “very hush-hush”.

“There [has been] no open debate about the goals that we want to accomplish, both as universities and more broadly as a society, nor are the target numbers per programme shared publicly.

“This has now become a bureaucratic exercise with some (quite random) target number of international students that is now the limit which needs to be spread between the universities,” he said.

He noted that there had been no mention of declining demographics even though the number of Dutch 18-year-olds is decreasing steeply, no mention of increasing labour market shortages, and no mention of the changing landscape of education through AI, requiring at least some investments to change course.

This would have been a great opportunity to have a more fundamental debate about higher education and to change course, also related to competitive financing, Visser added.

In an interview with University World News, Professor of Dutch and Academic Communication at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Marc van Oostendorp accused the associations of trading language policy away as a bargaining chip.

“The whole debate again shows a lack of vision. The [the assessment of non-Dutch-taught programmes (Toets Anderstalig Onderwijs, or TAO)] has been traded away in exchange for a numerus fixus and a headcount.

“Whatever one thought of the TAO as an instrument – I thought it was a bad one – the trade tells you that the language of instruction is now settled by capacity logic between administrators, not by any argument about what a university is for,” he stated.

He noted that the exemption list is a statement of values. “Education, nature, health, technology, and agriculture are spared, plus European universities. The humanities are, by construction, the sector where the caps land.

“So the disciplines that would carry a serious multilingual mission are the ones being squeezed to make room elsewhere, all in favour of a model of the university which has exactly two instruments – ‘international’ English and ’national’ Dutch – and no room for any other language,” he said.

The student organisations ISO and LSVb are disappointed that they were not involved in the administrative agreement. They deplore its backroom nature: “The discussion on internationalisation is being pulled out of the public debate. We are very critical of this,” Evy Kras, chair of the Dutch Student Union LSVb, told Erasmus Magazine.

Broader strategy on internationalisation

The administrative agreements and self-management are parts of a broader strategy for internationalisation at universities of applied sciences and universities. The talent strategy and the proposed ‘Internationalisation in Balance Act’ are also part of this, the agreement notes.

It was announced in the coalition agreement that the assessment of existing non-native language education, which was to evaluate the effectiveness of non-native education potentially leading to programmes in English being closed down, will be removed from the legislative proposal.

“The new version of the law is currently being drafted in an amendment memorandum, about which the House of Representatives will be informed after the summer,” the agreement said. It is now expected that new non-native language programmes will not be subject to assessment either.

The universities of applied sciences and research universities have pledged to improve the likelihood that international students will stay after their studies by taking measures such as providing Dutch language lessons and better preparing international students for the Dutch labour market.

‘Deeper repair measures needed’

Dr Derek Jan Fikkers, an independent strategy advisor to universities now working in Mellom-Advisors, told University World News: “The universities and the ministry deserve credit: self-management is now administratively anchored, and the ministry is extending real trust,” but it does not go far enough. “The problem is more fundamental than the agreement suggests,” he noted.

He used the metaphor of a typically Dutch ailment called pile rot to analyse the situation.

“Many Dutch cities are built on wooden piles. When the groundwater level drops, the piles start to rot, and the house slowly subsides. The owners only notice years after the rot water levels dropped, when the doors start jamming. Their first response is understandable: sand down the doors. But the house keeps sinking, and before long the doors jam again.

“Now think of our universities as the houses, of their governance and funding mechanisms as the piles the houses are built on, and of societal developments as the groundwater level. Obviously, groundwater levels have dropped,” he noted.

“Demographic growth has turned into decline, the public mood on globalisation has flipped, and a significant part of parliament is openly critical of basically all that universities stand for.

“The piles – a funding system that rewards growth in student numbers – were sound as long as the water was high. That same funding system produced the boom in international enrolment; in the new environment, that boom turned from a success into a liability. The doors jam,” he stated.

He said this agreement only sands the doors.

“As a first response, that is fine. But real repair means fixing piles: funding that rewards capacity and mission rather than headcount, and portfolio choices made at system level rather than institution by institution.”

He warned the universities and ministry that they should anticipate the doors jamming again at the first evaluation in February 2027.

“That’s not per se a problem, as long as everybody is also working on the foundation by then,” Fikkers concluded.

Intervention focus ‘too narrow’

Max van Duijn, chair of the Young Academy of the Netherlands (De Jonge Akademie), which is an independent division of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, told University World News that internationalisation should not be viewed as a problem to be tackled, given that it is a “precondition for a well-functioning academic system and for an innovative country with an open economy”, and is much broader than the number of incoming students.

“It is embedded in how research is conducted, how students are taught, how scientific networks are built, how Dutch universities participate in European and global academic communities, and how talent that is key for our future economy is attracted and retained.”

By contrast, housing shortages, workload at universities, limits in educational capacity, funding incentives and labour-market mismatch are indeed real problems, he said.

“Incoming students contribute to these problems in particular places and programmes, but this does not mean that these problems can be solved fundamentally by controlling just this variable.

“Incoming students also relieve pressure within those same systems: sustaining programmes in the face of demographic decline and supplying the future workforce in shortage sectors for which domestic enrolment alone is insufficient.

He said a more productive approach would be to target the problems directly: housing shortages through housing policy, workload through staffing and teaching capacity, and perverse growth incentives through funding reform.

“Where international student numbers demonstrably contribute to these pressures, they should be part of the solution, but not the starting point for policy nor the main target point of framing.”

Support for learning Dutch welcomed

Van Duijn said positive aspects of the self-regulation agreement include that it avoids applying a national language to existing programmes and it avoids “setting a precedent for central political control over the language and design of individual degree programmes, matters over which universities should retain substantial autonomy”.

“Also, the attention to Dutch-language learning is a genuine improvement. Visible, accessible and affordable Dutch courses for international staff and students are worth supporting, particularly when offered as an opportunity for participation and integration rather than imposed as a condition for belonging.”

However, he criticised the agreement for tying room for growth to current shortage sectors that have already been identified.

“This creates a bias towards what is already known and measurable. Universities do not only respond to existing labour-market demand. They also create new fields, combine disciplines and educate students for questions whose importance may only become apparent years later,” he said.